


Change is in the Air

by ScratchConlon



Category: Newsies (1992)
Genre: Drabble, Gen, Newsiestober, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-11
Updated: 2019-10-11
Packaged: 2020-12-08 00:28:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20984960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScratchConlon/pseuds/ScratchConlon
Summary: Jack Kelly has never liked Autumn. The Fall after the strike is particularly bad. How do you deal with growing up when you've been taking care of yourself your entire life?Written for Day 1/10 of Newsiestober.





	Change is in the Air

It’s October 10th and Jack Kelly doesn’t know what to do. He paced in front of the Horace Greely statue in Newsies square. Back and forth, back and forth; his cowboy hat drawn deep over his brow.

He told himself that he would make a decision after the strike was over. He hadn’t gone to Santa Fe, he stayed in the city to be with his friends and the people he cared about more than anything. But Jack had expected something to change. Wasn’t the strike about changing everything? About making everything better? But for the last few months he had woken up every day in the lodge house, or sometimes the Jacobs’ apartment -or even their fire escape or rooftop if he was feeling too closed in- and he went to work selling papers.

He told himself he would make a decision. But he kept putting it off. He didn’t want to be a newsie forever, but it was what he knew, and no one could deny he was good at it.

He_ had_ thought about other jobs. He had even talked to Denton and Mayer Jacobs about other jobs. They both had ideas, but Jack hadn’t ever taken them up on it. Now it was October, and his hands were cold. The cold air pressed in on him like a vice. All of a sudden summer was over and winter really had been waiting the whole time. He pressed his back to the cold stones on the base of the statue and looked up at the small trees that dared to grow in the city. Their leaves were changing and falling to the ground. Jack felt like he could _see_ it happening, see the green fading from their branches. He felt like he was growing up and dying with them.

After the strike was like after a party, when the chatter dies down and everyone goes home or goes to sleep. Jack was always the last one awake, the last one to stop playing cards, the last to keep the conversations going. He was always trying to hold on to something that was gone. He knocked his head back against the stones. How could he be two such different people at the same time? Sure he wanted the good times to go on forever, but even now he knew how nice that hot Santa Fe sun would feel on his skin.

But maybe, for him, running was about chasing the sun. Making the good times last.

There was another thing about getting a new job that scared Jack. If he had elected to stay in one place, to live in this city he had never left, he wanted to be able to roam wherever he pleased all day. He never wanted to sit inside a factory with dirty windows where he couldn’t see the sun. He looked up at the oppressive clouds that hung low and dark in the sky. He desperately needed to see the sun. Jack didn’t want to spend another winter panicky and unsure, saving his money and scraping together enough to eat. He wanted to make a living, to have a place he didn’t want to run away from. He wanted things to change, but to also stay the same.

Fall always messed with his head in ways he didn’t understand, and this one had been building for longer than Jack cared to think about. And no matter how many Autumns Jack went through, he longed for eternal summer.

“Jack?” A voice called from across the square. Jack didn’t have to look up to know who that half-unsure voice belonged to, as if David didn’t know it was him. David took one look at him and frowned in that worried way of his.

“I was looking for you, my parents want to know if you’re coming to dinner tonight?” He asked, hooking his thumb back towards his apartment. Jack took an even breath, sucking in the cold air even as it made his lungs burn.

“Are you coming or not? It’s cold out here,” David complained when Jack made no move to follow him. Jack smiled just a little at that.

“What? You still wishing for summer or something?” He asked, throwing an arm around David as they turned to walk back the way he had come. Jack hid his trepidation with a smile. But only for now. Fall was about change, and Jack had the nagging feeling to look over his shoulder.


End file.
